Zone Chat

[Charles]

As you guys know, we have deliberately chosen not to have global chat in the game. We could have it very, very easily, but we have chosen not to in order to have a more realistic feel to the game.

In our modern society, we can call people on the other side of the world on a cell phone and talk easily. In a world lacking such technologies, it shouldn't be possible to do that. So it's not.

We do, however, still have zone chat. In some places that's not a problem because the zones are small. In most places, it does allow people to speak to each other across much larger distances than a human voice can really carry.

In the last session a player was so dedicated to realism that he asked someone not to carry on a conversation with him from the other side of Worfin Island just for the sake of realism. Well, he had the right idea. This issue has been bothering me for a long time. I've been afraid to implement the obvious solution because I was thinking players wouldn't like it.

There are two possible solutions. One is to make smaller zones. This would mean that you would hit zone loading screens a lot more often. If would also mean delays in having new lands available because I would have to split them up into smaller zones instead of having them all be one zone. I would also have to take the time to redo existing zones to cut them up into smaller zones. This doesn't seem like a good use of time and effort.

The obvious solution is that with a click of a button, I can disable zone chat entirely. Players could still talk, but they would have to rely on chat bubbles that are only legible if you are standing reasonably close to the other person. They are slightly unrealistic because if someone walks up behind you and starts talking, you won't see the chat bubble. Still, not hearing someone behind you seems like less of a realism problem than having constant conversations going across miles of distance.

Besides, we might be able to write a special in-game command to allow you to speak to someone who is not facing you and have only that person or others nearby hear it.

Since I don't know how this will affect game play or what the reaction will be, I'm thinking of just giving it a try when version 01.54 comes out and seeing what the reaction is.

A lot of things I do run counter to established practices in MMOs, I know that. I think you will find that all the differences are caused by two things. One is stuff we did differently because it was much easier the way we did it. Some of that may be changed later. The other motive is things which are unrealistic in most MMOs and are more realistic in MotG.

Eliminating zone chat will be less convenient, but the argument for doing it is that it will be more realistic. You can post feedback here ahead of time telling me whether you think this is a good idea or a bad idea or whatever else you want to say about it, or you can wait and try it and then post feedback about it. Or both.

[lordborral]

lets not forget that magic will fix our need for long distance stuff eventually. but mmos rely heavily on communication, unless we can speak to each other well nothing will get done. we really do need a limiter on how far away we hear stuff, walls and so on too, but until you get all that worked out please dont take zone chat away

[Charles]

That's the problem. We need a way to limit talking over ridiculously long distances, but I can only think of three ways to do it:

1) Eliminate zone chat

2) Break up everything into very small zones

3) Rewrite the zone chat with a whole new system that works differently.

The second two are very difficult. The first one is the click of a button.

[sunshine]

I thought about it before I decided to say anything. I am in favor of global chat. And I'll tell you why.

90% of this game stuff is social for me. If I can't be chatting with others, I may as well be playing Solitaire or watching a movie.

There aren't enough players online at one time for me to even choose who I will chat with, it's everyone. I have no way of knowing who is playing except when they speak and travel to other places is still very dangerous for me.

As far as realism goes, I get enough of that every day. I rely on the magic to spice things up and make things work. If the gods can pluck me out of the sea or move me around with a magic ship, I see no reason they can't allow me to speak with others on the other side of the world.

[Charles]

As you may have noticed, we don't use global chat now.

We only use zone chat. So if you are at the Temple of Kraylus on the north end of Stondar Island, you can speak to someone in Orveka or at the docks of the Stondar City harbor.

It doesn't let you speak to someone on another island, though. It doesn't even let you speak to someone in Stondar City because that's a different zone.

Likewise, if you are at Worfin Village, you can speak to someone on the other end of Worfin Island, far beyond the range a human voice could really carry. But you can't stand on Worfin Island and chat with someone on Stondar Island or even on a ship at sea nearby.

Maybe you already know that and are advocating a more extensive chat system than we have now.

If we do remove zone chat, this won't prevent chatting. The way it is now, when you speak, your words appear in a text bubble over your head that can be seen by anyone nearby. That would not change. Your words also appear as text on the screen of everyone in the zone no matter how big the zone is.

What I'm thinking of is keeping the text bubbles and getting rid of the duplicate text on the screen.

This is somewhat like the permadeath issue in that at first glance, it seems like it would make the game less fun. Who wants to die permanently? Who wants to not be able to chat? But when we go beyond the immediate direct effect and look at indirect effects, the picture changes.

Our quasi-permadeath system has resulted in very, very few characters dying permanently (only two that I know of). Instead it has led to people taking violence far more seriously. Casual violence, which is common in most MMO games, is nonexistent in MotG. When violence does occur, such as at the recent Battle of Sheep Island, I think it ends up being far more exciting because it matters so much more.

People changed behavior to avoid dying and the result, I think, is a better game. I think that if there were no zone chat, it wouldn't stop people from chatting, it would just cause people to change behavior. For example, there would probably be more people hanging around talking in towns or other obvious meet-up points. I think that people would tend to travel in groups more.

These are not bad things. They add realism and enhance immersion. The most common question people ask each other would no longer be "Where are you?" With text bubbles only, if you can read what someone is saying, then you can see where they are.

Curiously, you would not automatically know their name like you do with zone chat. You could highlight someone and get their name or just ask them, but it wouldn't be printed next to everything they say.

I don't really know whether removing zone chat would be good or disastrous. I'm not ready to make a decision on that. I think it is impossible to predict exactly how people will react. I just want to do an experiment and have at least one session without it to see what it's like. I'm thinking that version 01.54 will have no zone chat, but then we'll put it back in with version 01.55 and after that figure out whether it should stay or go.

As Lordborral pointed out, this issue is related to other developments in the game. If there were magic that let you talk across long distances, zone chat might be irrelevant. Another thing I may not have even mentioned to you guys is that we are planning to put in at least one tavern where players can gather to talk, drink beer, play mini-games or perhaps even participate in bar room brawls if any break out. We need some new graphics, some scripts and a system for non-lethal unarmed combat to do all that. I'm open to suggestion on what the mini-games should be. I'm thinking of things like arm wrestling, throwing darts, that sort of thing. In real life lots of "drinking games" involve the use of dexterity or other skills that are adversely affected by alcohol. So the more you drink the harder the games become, but "drinking games" require you to drink. It will not be hard at all to have games that depend on your character's dexterity or speed. It also is not hard to write a script that temporarily reduces these attributes every time you drink a beer. I might even manage to make it so that a drunk character can't walk in a straight line. Fortunately there's no cars in the game so there's no drinking and driving problem. It would be funny to add a script that would cause a really drunk character to fall off his horse (if he had a horse). I think I could do that without too much trouble.

I'd like to not just have the standard tavern type stuff like darts. I also don't want to have things like pool tables. Those are a relatively modern invention and are as out of place in a medieval style fantasy world as video poker machines. I'd like to have some distinctive mini-games that you just couldn't do in the real world or any other MMORPG. I'm looking for ideas. My son Josh suggested a magic spell casting contest - as a drinking game. Imagine drunk mages trying to cast spells. Imagine the spells going wrong in lots of wacky ways as the mages get more and more drunk. Last one to correctly cast a spell wins?

It will take time to get all that ready. Notice that things like that are directly related to the zone chat issue. If you can socialize and joke around with other players all the time even when they are on the other side of the island, there's a lot less reason to go hang out at a tavern where the main attraction is socializing with other players. Likewise, if zone chat were eliminated, but there was no tavern yet, that might just destroy social interaction and the game with it.

By the way, the most likely location for the first tavern will be just outside the Inland Gate of Stondar City. That would allow the tavern to draw business not only from the dwarves of the city, but also from non-dwarves who would not have to pay the tax or enter the city to visit the tavern. The proximity to Orveka where there are plenty of depressed and bored gnomes makes it likely that tipsy and possibly bitter and belligerent gnomes might be a frequent issue in the tavern.

Obviously the question of whether to eliminate zone chat or even bring in global chat is a hugely important issue and player input will be very important in the decision. I hope you don't object too much to us just doing an experiment to see what happens without zone chat.

When the experiment is over, we may keep zone chat. It certainly is convenient. I especially like being able to scroll up and see what people said if I miss it while I'm typing. The fact that we are typing instead of actually speaking already introduces unrealistic issues into chatting. Zone chat is in some ways more realistic than text bubbles only. In other ways, such as distance, text bubbles are better.

Sunshine/Beepe brings up an interesting issue with magic. Magic certainly could make it possible for people to talk over long distances. But what magic? There is no spell or magic item for this. Maybe the best solution would be to remove zone chat, keep text bubbles, but add a spell or magic item that enables those who have it to talk to each other over ANY distance, not just within one zone.

Over the course of writing this post I've started thinking that any permanent elimination of zone chat should perhaps be postponed until the tavern is online and there is some form of long distance magical communications. I still might do the experiment by having no zone chat in version 01.54. Would that upset you guys too much?

[hywalker]

Should we be able to talk to someone we cannot see?.....
/whispers ...No.

Maybe the Local Fisherman at the wharf may have seen you if we ask Him/Her.
Much like (/who Zone) except it's an NPC we ask.

[sunshine]

That is a good idea. NPC=/who. After all, he was there all the time, right?

[lordborral]

i like the npc /who idea, but he should only tell you who passed him, aka took the ship, not teleported in or some such. i think the speech bubbles need to be revamped some, those are seriously hard to read right now. maybe set up as part of the ui rather than real polygons?